


The Ever-Hunt

by Louffox



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Blood, Dark!Paladin, Gore, Hunt, M/M, Wild Hunt, ZOP!, companion piece to A Time for Vengeance, dark!, kris i loved this so hard thank you, vengeance paladin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23931910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox
Summary: Oscar and Zolf are killed before their time. Grizzop prays to Artemis for one more favor.The gift she gives him will consume the world.
Relationships: Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Oscar Wilde, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Zolf Smith
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	The Ever-Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kristsune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristsune/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Time for Vengeance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23897326) by [kristsune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristsune/pseuds/kristsune). 



> HEY KRIS I LOVED YOUR FIC and this just sort of fell out of my brain after. dark zop dark zop DARK ZOP DARK ZOP! Thanks to Kris for the original fic, I recommend reading that before this!

His bow was engulfed in black flames as he called upon Artemis to light it with Holy Fire. Grizzop’s smile was sharp, but there was no mirth in it. Time to finish this, so he could move on to whatever was next. To whatever Artemis had planned for him.

Everything was shaking. Rage. Grief. It made his muscles flutter with energy begging to be spent, blood singing to spill blood. He felt like he was standing on the prow of a ship, like the earth herself was a panting beast, like the world was drawing breath to scream his righteous vengeance.

He breathed out slowly, nocking an arrow and drawing aim. He paused at the end of his exhale, perfectly still.

He didn’t release the string.

He released the wilds instead.

From the forest behind him, from every moonshadow, poured forth the beasts. Hounds, low and fast with bloodshot eyes and slavering jowls, tearing after the scent of prey, born and bred for the hunt, their sole purpose unleashed. Great boar, impossibly large, heaving walls of bristling flesh and muscle, tusked and furious. Bears of every brown and black, bowling and braying, claws finding and flaying sinew to the bone. The sky was full of hooked beaks hooking ears and eye sockets, talons scoring and scrabbling soft skin.

Grizzop could hear the screams of the prey and the screams of the wilds, and found his own mouth watering, wishing to sink and tear, to take down the fearful and fleeing. To bite. To chase.

He let his arrow fly and then followed it, he himself become the bolt.

The Hunt raced through him like a bloodflood, arterial spray, pre-dawn fog.

He thought he knew the hunt.

He’d never felt anything like this before.

Every muscletendonfiberstrength became ripcord, whipleather, steelwire. His senses exploded out, merging together until he couldn’t just smelltastehearsee prey, he could feel it, he knew it, he  _ knew _ it from the inside, where the fastbeating racingfearrunningfleeing _ notfastenoughtooutrunme _ heart of it fluttered, hot pulsing, thirst slaking-

Everything the moonlight touched was free feast, as long as you were smart enough, fast enough, strong enough.

And he was all that and more. So much more. The blessing of Artemis poured over him and filled him, overfilling him, spilling over and demanding he make them all spill as well.

He complied in a howling lunge for his enemies, prey, tearing through and tasting. The hoard of huntbeasts boiled around but left him untouched. They could tell by scent that he was  _ not _ prey.

The blood ran hot and delicious, dark in the moonlight, and no matter how much ran over his teeth and tongue, his thirst remained sharp and demanding.

He would hunt until someone else hunted him, and his blood fed teeth sharper than his.

The gaze of his goddess was clear and colorless that night, as he stood in the field of the fallen. He stepped carefully free of the mire. Not of tact for the dead- they were just meat, now- but for his own dexterity and balance. A hunter could not be anything but sure-footed. Grizzop couldn’t contemplate being anything less than sure in his life. He walked through blood soaked grass, feeling the cool soft earth beneath his feet, and scented the air for the trail to the next hunt.

And the next.

And the next.

He tore the throats of those who’d torn his heart. With his teeth. And then he kept tearing through the rest of the prey of the world, the misguided hare who believed themselves to be wolves, who wrapped themselves in stolen wolfskin and thought their smiles sharp indeed.

He showed them the truth of sharpness, and the night was not their ally, and the moon was cold and ever hungry and nothing could hide from her wild hunt.

And this hunter was of a wild that none could stand against.

**Author's Note:**

> good luck stopping that gobbo, so far nobody has lived who's tried. HUNT THE WORLD HERSELF, YOU SAVAGE HUNTER <3


End file.
